Friday, April 13, 2012

The Lincoln Stars earned a first-round bye in the opening round of the USHL Clark Cup playoffs tonight with a hard fought 4-2 victory over the Fargo Force in front of 4,000+ fans at the IceBox. Click here to view the Pointstreak boxscore.

With the win and the two points, the Stars improved to 37-18-4 (78 points) and are still in sole possession of first place in the USHL Western Conference. The second place Omaha Lancers (77 points) beat the lowly Des Moines Buccaneers tonight in overtime by a score of 4-3. If Lincoln can beat the Force tomorrow night in Fargo, the Stars will finish in first place and win the western conference regular season championship. Click here to view the current USHL standings.

The Stars will open up the second round of the USHL Clark Cup playoffs at the IceBox next Friday and Saturday nights (4/20 and 4/21), so buy those tickets now if you don't already have them!

Kevin Roy scored four points tonight (2g, 2a), and now has 104 points (54g, 50a) on the season with one regular season game left to play. The last USHL player to score more than 100 points in a season was Peter Fregoe of the Des Moines Buccaneers who scored 103 points in 56 games during the 1998-99 season. The all-time points record in a season is 135 points scored by Tim Ferguson of the Sioux City Musketeers way back in 1985-86 (before Kevin Roy was born). Roy also is riding a 15-game point scoring streak, which is the most by any player in the USHL this season.

Dominik Shine and Jared Hanson scored the other two goals for the Stars tonight. Charles Williams cemented his position as the team's #1 goaltender by stopping 29 of 31 shots for his 20th win of the season. Lincoln went 1-for-3 on the powerplay, while Fargo went 0-for-4 with the man advantage. Lincoln outshot Fargo overall 32-31.

Great effort tonight! I thought the boys played a solid 60 minutes of hockey. Nice to get those two points and the first round bye in the playoffs, but I'm sure the team still wants one more win to finish in first place and win the western conference regular season championship.

I'll try to update this article tomorrow with more info. Enjoy the win tonight, folks!

1 comment:

totally enjoyed the whole night. boys played a tough game and took it to Fargo. really enjoy the autograph/photo session afterwards. now let's go take another one from the Force tonight and bring home 1st place in the conference!